With two leading roles in one drama, Matthew Rhys’ latest TV project was a major challenge. During a whistlestop return to Wales, the Hollywood star catches up with Karen Price and talks about martial arts, stage fright and two new four-legged additions to the family

Matthew Rhys is calling me from an office on the 20th floor of ITV’s headquarters in London.

He’s just appeared on the early morning Lorraine show and now he’s doing some interviews to promote his forthcoming TV drama.

A few hours later, he’s heading back to his native Wales to catch up with family and friends for 24 hours before flying across the Atlantic to start filming a new series for an American cable channel.

For the last six years, Cardiff-born Rhys has been dividing his time between his Los Angeles base and the UK.

But he seems to be juggling these two very different lifestyles – the glitz and glamour of being a Hollywood star and down-to-earth home-loving Welshman – with ease.

It seems rather apt then that in new ITV drama, The Scapegoat – an adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel, which is screened tomorrow – Rhys plays the parts of two men from contrasting backgrounds.

Set in 1952, John Standing and Johnny Spence only have one thing in common – a face. Almost exact replicas of each other they meet by chance in a station bar. Each is at a crossroads in his life – one setting out on a walking tour after losing his job as a teacher; the other avoiding home after a disastrous business venture.

Before they know it, each man is stepping literally into his double’s shoes.

Rhys shot the drama in the UK last winter just after long-running American series Brothers & Sisters, in which he played gay former lawyer Kevin, came to an end.

“I wanted to come home and do something that was very different,” says the 37-year-old.

“Charles Sturridge (who directed the 1981 classic TV drama Brideshead Revisited) was directing which was a massive draw. It was a period drama and it was challenging as I would be playing two parts.

“The trickiest bit was making sure it was credible when my characters swapped places with each other – they had to be similar enough so that those around them believed they were the other person but there had to be subtle differences so that viewers will know who’s who. It was a fine balancing act.

“I tried to use a different posture for each one. When I was playing Johnny, the posh character, I used to pretend I could smell something slightly unpleasant to give him a sneer. I made John a little bit softer.”

The Scapegoat – which Rhys filmed back-to-back with another TV drama, Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood which was screened earlier this year – was shot in just four weeks.

He says the toughest day of filming was the first day when he was in scenes featuring both characters.

“We would shoot so far then I’d have to take my coat off and do my hair differently before filming again.”

To help get his performances spot-on for the scenes between the two characters, Rhys rehearsed with another actor.

“There were times, though, when he’d do something a little different and in my head, I’d go, ‘That’s not quite how I’m going to do it’, but you have to react instinctively to his performance, so your head’s going in a million directions, it’s like, ’Sorry, what?’”

He describes the cast, which includes Eileen Atkins, Sheridan Smith and Johdi May, as “sublime”.

So what was it like having Atkins, one of the grande dames of stage and screen, playing his mother?

“She plays a formidable mother so I was having to act terrified – it came rather easily,” he jokes.

“She’s just fabulous. She’s one of the giants of the acting world and does it so effortlessly.”

Rhys had never read any Du Maurier books before filming – let alone The Scapegoat – and he hasn’t picked up a copy since.

“I stayed away from the novel. With the Dickens drama (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) I read the novel and took things from it that weren’t necessarily in the screen play, which I don’t think ever helps, so I purposely avoided it this time.”

He also avoided watching the film version in which Alec Guinness tackled the roles he plays.

“I know what I’m like and I’d nick something from Alec Guinness if I did, so I thought I’d be a purist and just stay with the script.”

When The Scapegoat is screened this weekend, Rhys will be in New York, where he’s filming The Americans.

The pilot, which was shot in the city earlier this year for Steven Spielberg’s company DreamWorks, has just been picked up by cable channel FX for a 13-part series.

Rhys and actress Keri Russell, whose credits include Mission: Impossible III, play two KGB spies posing as a married American couple in the suburbs of Washington DC in the ’80s.

The arranged marriage of Phillip (Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Russell), who have two children who know nothing about their parents’ true identity, grows more passionate and genuine by the day, but is constantly tested by the escalation of the Cold War and the intimate, dangerous and darkly funny relationships they must maintain with a network of spies and informants under their control.

The actor is delighted that the pilot proved a success and he’s now preparing for some rigorous physical training as well as filming.

“There’s a lot of martial arts in it so I need to start some martial arts training now,” he admits. “I did an intense month (of training) prior to the pilot shooting and loved it. Over the years, I’ve done various jobs calling for things like kick-boxing but nothing like this.”

I suggest he should call up Wales’ Olympic tae kwon-do champion, Jade Jones, for some pointers.

“Yes, brilliant, she could be my own personal trainer,” he laughs. “It was just amazing when she won her gold medal. She did incredibly well and we should all be so proud of her.”

Rhys will be filming The Americans for the next five months or so. It’s the first US series he’s starred in since Brothers & Sisters ended after a five-year run. Among the cast were Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart and Rob Lowe and they all became good friends.

But he says that after five seasons on the ABC network (it was screened in the UK too) it was time to move on.

“It came to a very natural end. We’ve all kept in touch so it’s not been difficult to let go.”

The end of Brothers & Sisters meant that Rhys could also get back to one of his first passions – theatre.

At the start of the year, he made his off-Broadway debut playing the disaffected Jimmy Porter in Look Back In Anger.

In a way, it was like coming full circle for him as he’d been inspired to take up acting after watching his hero Richard Burton playing the role in the 1959 film version of the drama.

But while it was a big moment in his successful career – which includes films like House Of America, Patagonia and The Edge Of Love, in which he played Dylan Thomas – Rhys admits that he was “terrified”.

“Doing Look Back In Anger was amazing but it had been six years since I was on stage and going back was terrifying. I thought I’d missed the chance to play the part as Jimmy Porter is 26 and I was... ooh 30-something,” he laughs. “But the opportunity came along. It was one of the reasons I wanted to act. I remember seeing Richard Burton in the film version. Doing the play meant an enormous amount to me.”

Rhys, who played Romeo with the Royal Shakespeare Company eight years ago, says that during the run up to the opening of Look Back In Anger he was overcome with nerves.

“Although I was terrified, you think it will be fine in the end,” he reveals. “In the run up to the opening night you do run-throughs and there are people sitting in watching them so it’s a gentle way to ease yourself into it.

“But on the first night of the previews I was white and shaking and there’s nothing you can do to conquer it. At 7.30pm you have to step out on stage and that’s it. There’s no other option.”

But Rhys’ performance in the Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of the drama was well received by critics, with Charles Isherwood writing in the New York Times: “Mr Rhys captures the lighter side of Jimmy with an appealing friskiness.”

Meanwhile, Marilyn Stasio of Variety.com said the actor made Jimmy “sympathetic, even likeable” to modern-day audiences.

And, perhaps most importantly, he received the seal of approval from Burton’s actress daughter Kate Burton.

“Kate came to see it on press night and she gave me a big hug at the end. I didn’t know she was there until she came backstage afterwards – thank God!” says Rhys.

The play ran for three months at the Laura Pels Theater in New York.

“It was such an intense play. I couldn’t have done it any longer. But I definitely want to do more theatre.”

So would he like to try his hand at some contemporary stage pieces or does he prefer sticking to the classics?

“There are a lot of great writers out there at the moment but I still love a bit of Shakespeare,” he admits.

He says he would be keen to follow in his friend Michael Sheen’s footsteps and work with National Theatre Wales. The non venue-based company launched two years ago and takes theatre into different communities. And as well as staging drama in theatres, there have been many site-specific performances, including a Shakespearean production in an aircraft hangar.

Sheen – who, coincidentally, has also played Jimmy Porter on stage – was behind a 72-hour epic performance which was inspired by the traditional Passion Play he had watched while growing up. His production, The Passion, was staged on location throughout his home town of Port Talbot during Easter 2011 and broadcast to the world online.

“If the script was right I’d love to work with National Theatre Wales,” says Rhys. “I think it’s brilliant. Most importantly, it goes out into communities. In ancient Wales that’s what we were known for.”

While he may now be based in LA, Rhys is still a keen supporter of the arts back home in Wales. He’s patron of Cardiff-based Sherman Cymru and was one of the champions behind its redevelopment fundraising drive.

He was also behind a campaign to save Theatr Gwaun in Fishguard from closure and even encouraged his Brothers & Sisters co-stars to support it.

Double Oscar-winner Sally Field and actor/director Beau Bridges were among those who publicly backed the cause.

Our conversation turns to Welsh National Opera and its forthcoming autumn season.

So does he fancy a turn on the opera stage?

“One of my dreams is to sing The Pearl Fishers Duet with Bryn Terfel,” he says, telling me how he once enjoyed seeing the bass baritone team up with tenor Dennis O’Neill for the famous Bizet number.

Can he sing?

“No!” he exclaims.

At the time of our chat, Rhys has spent several weeks in the UK, including considerable time in Wales when he attended the National Eisteddfod in the Vale of Glamorgan and celebrated both the birthdays of his elder sister, Rachel, and father, Glyn, and caught up with friends.

“It’s nice to be back. Weirdly, there are times when you miss the actual topography of the place,” he says of Wales.

“LA’s very brown for most of the year, so sometimes when you go back to Wales it’s like an overload of green because of the rain.”

But while he may miss his beloved Wales, there’s now something of a Welsh contingent in LA with his actor friends Ioan Gruffudd, Andrew Howard and Michael Sheen now all based there too.

“There are a few of us who watch the Six Nations at a pub in Santa Monica,” says the keen rugby fan. “There’s a British barbecue on a Sunday. I think that’s the best way to deal with the madness of the place, have friends around who remind you of home.

“I’ve seen a lot of Andrew recently. His series (Hatfields & McCoys) has broken records. He’s everywhere. He’s riding high at the moment.”

When he gets a rare break from filming, Rhys can usually be found in Griffith Park, which is where the Hollywood sign proudly stands. Ironically, the park is named after Welshman Griffith Jenkins Griffith, who was born in 1850 in Bettws, near Bridgend, but moved to the US in search of work and a new life. He went on to make a massive fortune mining ore.

Rhys once made a documentary for S4C about Griffith when he got to do something very rare – scale the 45ft letters of the infamous sign.

But these days he’s most likely to be found riding his two horses – Sonny Jim and Warbonnet.

“They take up every spare minute. I ride them in Griffith Park every day when I’m in LA.

“I learned to ride years ago when I was little and I’ve ridden for work projects in the past.”

Rhys bought them from a prison in Nevada. He had been asked to write an article for Horse & Hound magazine about how in-mates in some American prisons are given horses to train and look after before they’re sold.

But he found it difficult to convince some wardens that his project was genuine.

“Everyone thought Horse & Hound was a fabricated publication from Notting Hill!” laughs Rhys, referring to a scene in the film when Hugh Grant pretends to be a journalist for the publication.

So what made him buy the horses?

“I stuck my hand up in an auction during a moment of madness.”

One hobby that seems to have been sidelined these days is surfing.

“I’ve no time to surf with these two monkeys,” he says, referring to the horses.

While he may be one of the country’s most eligible men, Rhys – who was once linked to actress Sienna Miller, his co-star in The Edge Of Love – reveals he’s single.

And his ideal woman?

“Someone like Katharine Hepburn,” he says of the Oscar-winning ’30s Hollywood actress, whose credits included Little Women and Morning Glory.

With filming for The Americans taking him beyond Christmas, Rhys is in that often rare and comfortable place for an actor – knowing there’s secure work for the foreseeable future.

And after a long stint in front of the camera, ideally he would like his next project to be in theatre.

But he says he’s not one to make plans.

“I don’t have a plan. I just go where the work is. If I can continue to do what I’m doing now – working here and in America – I’ll be living the dream.”